‘Madam Secretary,’ ‘State of Affairs’ and Other Series Channel Hillary Rodham Clinton

Video Shows like “State of Affairs,” “Madam Secretary” and “Political Animals” have characters with uncanny similarities to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

September 3, 2014

It could have been that photograph of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the White House Situation Room watching, hand over mouth, as cameras showed the SEAL Team Six raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound.

Or maybe it was the moment she blew up at senators questioning her handling of Benghazi. (“What difference at this point does it make?”)

For some reason, Mrs. Clinton is embedded in several new fall dramas, most obviously “Madam Secretary,” a new CBS drama with Téa Leoni playing a take-charge secretary of state. There are also imprints of Mrs. Clinton on an NBC show, “State of Affairs,” in which the president is a woman (Alfre Woodard) and her most trusted adviser (Katherine Heigl) is a bold C.I.A. analyst who daily assesses — and almost single-handedly averts — national security threats.

In both pilots, Hillaryesque heroines lobby for risky rescue operations in the Middle East and then watch via satellite as the mission unfolds. Both women defy naysayers who question their foreign policy decisions.

Téa Leoni plays a secretary of state on “Madam Secretary,” new on CBS.

Craig Blankenhorn / CBS

Five years ago, the only successful television drama about a woman in politics was “The Good Wife” on CBS, and that was about the blindsided wife of a philandering governor. A few years before, ABC tried to make a go with Geena Davis as the first female president in “Commander in Chief.” That show fizzled and was canceled.

But what is especially striking is that in an age of deep cynicism about Washington, the new portraits of women in high office are painted in rosy shades of respect and admiration. While many of their more self-serving colleagues pursue ignoble agendas, network heroines in top positions are multitasking do-gooders trying to keep the nation safe.

That may be welcome news to Mrs. Clinton, who has not yet announced whether she will run for president in 2016, and who is still floating high on suspense and raised expectations. But it’s a little dull for viewers in the mood for a juicier and more realistic drama à clef.

The White House is one of the few conspicuous glass ceilings left, so maybe television writers are reluctant to make light of so important a milestone.

Katherine Heigl as a C.I.A. analyst and adviser to the president on “State of Affairs” on ABC.

Michael Parmelee / NBC

Unless, of course, the Republican National Committee and other conservative groups that lobbied successfully last year to prevent NBC from going ahead with a mini-series starring Diane Lane as Mrs. Clinton had a point. The complaint then was that networks would favor Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy under the guise of providing entertainment; the committee threatened to boycott the debates held by networks that went ahead with their Hilliographies. (CNN also gave up on a planned documentary.)

Now, the joke is on those conservative scolds: These fictionalized versions are not as easily swatted down.

Mrs. Clinton is not the only muse shaping the new fall season of course. Carrie Mathison, the bipolar C.I.A. officer played by Claire Danes on “Homeland” (Showtime) has several imitators. Hope Davis plays a former K.G.B. undercover agent pressed back into service by a Putin-era spy ring on “Allegiance,” an NBC drama that also owes a lot to “The Americans” on FX.

And Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the ABC dramas “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal,” may actually be more influential than Mrs. Clinton. Ms. Rhimes is an executive producer of a new ABC series that takes all the sex, power and conspiracy she packed into Washington and crams it into a law school classroom.

Hillary Rodham Clinton seated with President Obama and other officials during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound in 2011.

Pete Souza / White House

On the new show, Viola Davis plays Annalise Keating, a criminal defense expert who is as smart and scary as Glenn Close on “Damages” or John Houseman on “The Paper Chase.” Keating doesn’t teach constitutional law, she teaches a criminal defense course that is also the title of the series, “How to Get Away With Murder.”

There isn’t a lot of sex in the pilot of “Madam Secretary,” but there is plenty of West Wing power mongering and conspiracy. Only the heroine, Elizabeth McCord, is above the fray. And as secretary of state, she has to find a way around a hostile, hawkish and power-hungry chief of staff who seems a lot like Dick Cheney.

Elizabeth is an idealized version of Mrs. Clinton, with all the smarts and drive and none of the ambition. Unlike the real Mrs. Clinton, this secretary of state didn’t run for president; she didn’t even want to be in the cabinet. Elizabeth is a former C.I.A. analyst turned college professor with a husband, two children and a horse farm who is dragooned into public service. “You quit a profession you love for ethical reasons,” the president tells her. “That makes you the least political person I know.”

The chief of staff assigns a stylist to give Elizabeth a more pulled-together image. Elizabeth resists, until she finds a way to use the makeover to further a worthy cause.

Television used to indulge the Cinderella myth. Now it’s offering a Cincinnatus fantasy.

The pursuit of virtue seems almost perverse, given how well other series have done by focusing on the underbelly of politics. Ms. Rhimes showed the way with “Scandal”; everyone on that baroque nighttime soap has a fiendishly selfish agenda, especially the female vice president, though Olivia Pope, the Washington fixer played by Kerry Washington, is more noble than most.

Cable and Internet shows are even less inhibited. The women on the Netflix hit “House of Cards” are as corruptible and ruthless as any man, and the women on the Amazon show “Alpha House” are almost as foolish. On “Veep,” a satirical comedy on HBO about a vice president with her eye on the Oval Office, Julia Louis-Dreyfus channels all the pettiness, calculation and craven inaction that lie behind the C-Span curtain.

Political purity doesn’t require chastity. Maybe because Carrie on “Homeland” made it safe for a strong heroine to have casual sex with strangers, networks are daring to showcase heroines who engage in risqué — not to say risky — behavior by night.

It’s not promiscuity for pure pleasure, though. Not exactly. On “Homeland,” and also on “Black Box,” the recently canceled ABC medical drama about a bipolar neurosurgeon, hypersexuality is a symptom of the heroine’s condition. On “State of Affairs,” it’s a coping mechanism: Ms. Heigl plays Charleston Tucker, a high-level C.I.A. analyst whose fiancé was killed in a war zone and who assuages her grief by drinking heavily and picking up men in bars. Grief also drives Detective Jo Martinez (Alana De La Garza) on “Forever” on ABC to booze-soaked one-night stands.

Neither woman seems interested in dating or even polite morning-after chatter. Jo sneaks out of a man’s apartment and is irritated when he follows her out and asks to see her again. “If I want to find you, I will,” she says.

There are no such lapses on “Madam Secretary,” of course. That heroine is too busy balancing family responsibilities and the affairs of state to contemplate an extramarital affair. That’s a guy thing.